Why Turks Never Get Dates
by Luddles
Summary: Unrequited love seems to be a running theme among the Turks. Five drabbles about Tseng, Elena, Reno, Rude, and Cissnei and their struggles with romance, mostly the people they love all being madly in love with other people. Tseng/Aerith, Elena/Tseng, Reno/Elena, Rude/Tifa, and Cissnei/Zack. Oneshot, complete. Skips all over the timeline.


A/N: I'M ALIVE. But yeah, I'm finally writing fanfiction after forever. It's basically five drabbles about Turks and how they all have unrequited loves. The Elena one is my favorite, mostly because she reminds me of myself. The Cissnei one is really close to my own life, though.

Tseng

Over his years of being a Turk, Tseng had watched over a number of people. Surveillance, as it was formally called, babysitting if you were Reno and it was Rufus you were protecting from harm. When there weren't matters of life or death to handle, the Turks sometimes ended up as glorified babysitters. After being in the field for weeks, Tseng found surveillance missions to be the most boring thing to which he could possibly be assigned. Especially when it was someone like the President or Hojo or Rufus.

But there was one person that Tseng had never minded watching. He could sit outside the church, staring through a crack in the door, and watch Aerith tend to her flowers all day. She always smiled while she worked, only leaving to get water from the pump down the road when she ran out. Tseng, who wasn't supposed to be seen, had to duck behind a pile of rubble nearby every time she did. She never suspected that someone was watching her flounce off in her frilly sundress, carrying her watering can and humming along the way. Tseng had no idea how she always felt so safe. To him, the world was one big sphere full of danger. To Aerith, as long as she had her flowers and a roof above her, she was perfectly safe.

Aerith came back faithfully every time, only a few minutes after leaving. She walked back more slowly, bearing the burden of the full watering can. Her dress was flecked with splashes of water when she overfilled it. Other times, she managed to keep any of it from overflowing.

She went back in the church and Tseng returned to sitting by the door, watching her with the flowers again.

Some days, she sang. Her voice was high and soft but it carried in the vaulted ceilings of the church. It was the most beautiful thing Tseng had ever heard, and it made his heart pound in the same rhythm of her fast-paced song. Those days, he allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment and listen only to the pure, sweet voice that rang through the air. Dropping his senses to that level was dangerous. Someone could have snuck up on them while he was reveling in Aerith's song, but that didn't keep him from it. He was not going to ignore the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. When the singing stopped, he was back on alert, watching for any kind of threat.

He wasn't there one day, and that was the day the boy fell from the ceiling. With him fell every hope Tseng had ever cradled that maybe her song would stop and she would poke her head out the door. That she would notice him watching over her, like a guardian angel in a suit with a gun. Tseng very suddenly accepted the reality that it was never going to happen. That dazzling smile that she gave the SOLDIER boy would never be for him. The laughter that pealed around the church at Zack's jokes would never be at Tseng's words.

And he would never be the one boldly asking her for a date, or tying pink ribbons in her hair.

Elena

Elena was the rookie. That much appeared to be common knowledge for the entirety of the Turks, from the way they teased her about it. Reno was always talking about past missions, all more gruesome than anything Elena had gone through, telling her that a rookie like her would pass out from the sight of things he'd gone through. Rude treated her like a child, always tiptoeing around her and trying to protect her. The rest acted mostly like Reno, all except for one.

Tseng was the only person who treated Elena like the rest of the Turks. He didn't consider her a rookie, which meant he expected just as much of her as the rest. He was hard on her, but she appreciated it. He made her a better Turk. She learned more from him than from any of the others, and she wished she could be with him constantly.

But it wasn't always for that reason.

Elena's first impression of Tseng was an interesting story, and not one she would ever tell anyone. She considered the impression she'd had on him to be one of the worst ever made in the history of first impressions. It was before she'd gotten her hair cut, and she still looked like a bouncy little schoolgirl, save for the signature Turk suit. Her hair was pulled up into pigtails, and those thin red ribbons were drawing the very distasteful eye of her new boss.

"You look like a child," he'd said, frowning as he tugged on the end of the little pigtails.

And if she was a child, he was the epitome of maturity. Her head reached to about his chest and his face was set in a stern glare. Elena found herself wondering if he ever smiled. She would wonder that for a very long time, until she ran into him watching through the door of a church, a smile lighting up his face. When she met him, his dark eyes were unyielding, as was his voice. He was terrifying. And Elena had nothing more to do than blush and stutter and say that she was going to get it cut soon.

When she did, he only nodded curtly and said it looked better.

But even that statement, which wasn't even a compliment to her, made her heart flutter. She smiled and when she walked away, she skipped a little until Reno came around the corner.

The first time she touched him, she could have sword she floated of the ground a little. It was just on mission, actually, it had been a mistake. Someone nearly shot Elena and Tseng grabbed her and pulled her out of the way. She collided with his chest, her face pressed against his jacket and the scent of his cologne surrounding her. Elena squealed in surprise, but mostly joy.

She realized now that it was kind of stupid for her to be so excited about a wayward comment or an accidental touch. There was no meaning behind it, no way Tseng could suddenly notice her for more than just his employee simply because he ran into her. Things didn't happen quite like they did in fairy tales, and Elena was okay with not being the princess and him not being her prince charming.

Elena never totally lost hope, though, even when they were trapped in an underground cave and she had to watch him be tortured nearly to death and she swore she would cry every tear she had in her.

Somehow, though, even after surviving that much together, Tseng's heart never quite belonged to her.

Reno

Reno always thought the notion of being swept off one's feet was stupid, but he was certainly feeling a little swept-off right now. Five and a half feet of curves and long legs and a slinky dress and kitten heels was standing in front of him, which wasn't exactly overwhelming. It was just the fact that he could barely tell it was Elena. Going undercover often required strange things of them, like that one time Rude had to act like a drug dealer, but this...

This was something else entirely.

Elena's short hair was mostly pinned up with glittery hairpins, except for a few strands that were curled elegantly around her face. Her dark eyes were lined with darker makeup, and her lips were bright red and sort of drawing him in like a magnet. That was when Reno fell in love with what Elena looked like. He made all sorts of rude comments that night, probably the aftereffects of everything he really shouldn't have been drinking while on the job.

That wasn't when Reno really fell in love with Elena. Because the next day, she showed back up at work in her suit again, completely lacking all of the elegance and gorgeousness she had the last night. Reno thought he could brush off the weird attraction he'd had to her yesterday (after all, Elena was always running after Tseng, so it was weird to like her, right?), but he was pretty much dead wrong.

"Morning, Reno!" Elena said cheerfully.

Who gave her coffee? Oh, it was Tseng, and so she wasn't saying no to that. Tseng brought coffee for everyone, but Elena treated it like he'd given her diamonds. She never acted that way when Reno brought coffee. That is... if Reno ever did bring coffee. Still, Reno was in a bad position. He was jealous of the one person who had the most influence in his life: his boss. And jealous over something Tseng probably wasn't even observant enough to know he had.

Today sucked.

Reno never really loved anyone before. Heck, he'd never even had a real girlfriend, unless you counted that one girl whose name he actually couldn't remember from middle school. He 'dated' her for two weeks, they held hands when they walked down the hallways, and he kissed he once. Other than that, Reno's romantic relationships were nonexistent. He kept telling himself he didn't even know what he was thinking. It was Elena, after all. This was the girl he chased down the halls and scared her first week on the job. This was Elena, who joked with him and Rude in the bars after work, Elena, who once killed a man that got the drop on Reno.

Elena, who had that nasty habit of falling asleep on planes and ended up crashing against his shoulder every time. Elena, who tried to cook muffins on the stove and called him for help in the middle of the night because she almost set her apartment on fire. The redone version of the muffins when actually baked in the oven were much better.

Reno was in love.

And it was awful. He vowed never to do that again.

Cissnei

Of all the extremely oblivious people on the planet (and there were a lot of them, Reno, to name one), Zack Fair was the worst. Cissnei wasn't really the most forward person in the world, but she had flirted enough, especially considering she was a Turk and all, and flirting was not exactly their strong suit. Zack had flirted back, or so she thought. The whole asking her out to dinner thing seemed like some kind of advance.

But Tseng was there, and Tseng glared at everyone, and Zack didn't do well when people glared at him. So he left, and after that, he didn't ask Cissnei out again. In the meantime, he'd met Aerith and apparently they were going out now. Reno was congratulating him and asking him 'how far they'd gone'. At that point, Cissnei gagged and left the room.

Zack just looked over his shoulder and grinned weakly at her.

Cissnei was losing count of the amount of times she'd saved his life. Zack had this amazing ability to get into trouble. He had been presumed dead, and then was kidnapped by the company both of them worked for. They were going to kill him. She was the one who got him out.

She was the one who convinced Tseng to try to get him out, rather.

Zack was an idiot, and now he was dead because of it. Cissnei locked herself in her room and cried and screamed because she was coming for him, but he had to keep moving. If only Reno and Rude had found him, if only they had somehow been able to override the army. Get word to them to stop pursuing him, bring him home. But that couldn't happen now. He was gone. They wouldn't even have a funeral.

But Cissnei was even stupider than Zack sometimes, because Cissnei didn't check her voicemail. She'd been so caught up in finding Zack, saving Zack, bringing him home that she forgot about the real world a little. When she finally checked her phone, she discovered a single message, titled with "Fair". It was from four years ago. Four years! Cissnei really needed to check her personal phone more often.

She pressed play.

"'Sup, Cissnei, it's Zack!" His voice sounded so cheery. It really must have been from four years ago. "Anyway, I wanted to come see you, but Reno says you're on mission and I'm headed out for Niebelheim in the morning, so I just decided to call you... um... Well, I just kind of... I know how you feel about me. I've known for a while, and I thought it would just... I dunno, go away, but... I mean, I'm with Aerith and all that now, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I'm really glad we're friends and alsoAngealisyellingatmesoIha vetogobye."

Zack was not as much of an idiot as Cissnei gave him credit for.

Rude

"I cannot believe she's dating Cloud."

Once again, Reno managed to perfectly articulate exactly what Rude was thinking. They tended to think on the same wavelength most of the time, despite the fact that they were about as opposite as two human beings could be. It was part of what made them such good partners. It was also part of why Rude was so quiet, because Reno just tended to loudly and obnoxiously articulate everything he meant to say, and he didn't really feel any need to do much more than grunt or nod.

So he did, in fact, grunt and nod at that statement.

"I mean, seriously, she's freaking gorgeous and strong and... really, really hot."

"Shut up, Reno," Rude said.

It was sometimes a good idea to just silence Reno before he kept going. But they were at Seventh Heaven, which meant Reno was ordering himself more and more drinks, and with each one, he just got louder, stupider, and more impolite. Before long, Rude was going to have to cart him off. He would have done it already, if it wasn't for Tifa.

She was behind the bar, as always, and they were at a table a couple yards away. Some girl that Rude didn't know was sitting on the opposite side of the bar from Tifa, and they were chatting. Said girl must have been wildly funny, because Tifa was laughing her head off. Rude raised his glass to his lips and grinned while he watched Tifa laugh. Her smile was admittedly beautiful, and thankfully, he saw a lot more of it now that everything was starting to go back to normal.

Cloud was the only problem. He wandered out of the back room and hugged Tifa, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Rude's smile slid off his face as Tifa's lit up. She laughed harder and just batted Cloud away. Rude really wished Cloud hadn't come over to his table. He was glad he had the ability to be so stoic, even in the face of boiling jealousy. Reno certainly couldn't do that. Whenever Elena ranted on about Tseng, Reno got this look on his face like he'd eaten something poisonous.

Rude glanced up, past Cloud and at the bar, just as Tifa turned around. She smiled and waved, and he waved back a little. He knew she'd only ever see him as the big, quiet Turk who hung around Reno all the time. But he still sort of wished she would realize that Cloud was, in Reno's words, "stupid and emo," and leave him behind.

She was happy this way, though. So he was happy, too.


End file.
